Ankyra Sound piyugaktuk

She was a ghost. A spirit — that had to have been it.

Kigipigak had been wrong about many things of late, so why not this too? Why not follow the beliefs of Kukutux here, now, when shown something so incredible? He was not a man of faith or superstition — but he could be. He could be many things if he chose to step away from the path that his Tartok blood had placed him upon.

He stared at her, this figment, for a long moment. They stared at one another; both haunted.

I looked for you. Kigipigak all but croaked. He was afraid to speak; that was unlike him. He was afraid to feel the joy that choked him now as he studied her face, searching for any trace of a lie in the contours of it. Before she could say anything and break the spell of her arrival, he was sweeping in to close that tiny distance between them - holding her close, perhaps too rough in the process.

Real — ?! Awash in guilt, which trembled from his lungs as he sucked in a breath and with it, the warm scent of her coat. Even in the depths of winter she brought to mind summer dust and storm clouds in June.